1. Technical Field
Exemplary embodiments relate generally to telecommunications data network resource management, and more particularly, to management of network elements and resources by multiple management systems.
2. Description of the Background
Within a system-based management environment, typically a single management system manages one or more designated resources. Generally, a resource can be described in terms of its attributes. While some resources express a form of state, other resources may not.
With the arrival of Policy-based Management systems comes the possibility of managed resources with state that may need to be managed by two systems, the original system (generally an operations support system/network management system (OSS/NMS)) and a policy-based control system. This concept can be extended to the instance where generally two or more systems actively manage the same resource. A possible reason for this is that the systems work in differing time scales on the same managed resource and one such system can have differing functional capabilities, generally introduced as incremental functionality. Systems have a data model representation of the resource, including for example, rules on how to change the resource (e.g., possessing a state model of the resource) and a way to communicate with the resource. Thus, in the event that one system makes changes to a managed resource, then it is very likely that the other managing systems need to be updated about the change in the resource. For example, network elements generally consist of one or more physical and logical resources. Further, each management system may have its own rules about how to manage the resource, and such rules may need to be consulted by a system that desires to change a managed resource. There are challenges associated with this scenario. Some form of communication is needed and some form of resolution to cope with the different implementations is also needed.